3 - Be exposed, again, as a tool that will accept whatever "TRUTH" the party tells you to believe ... even when it conflicts with other spoon fed "TRUTH" that the party tells you that you also believe.

On Christmas, Forbes contributor Paul Roderick Gregory took on Sen. Harry Reid’s contention that people who pay taxes on $1 million worth of income and also create jobs are “unicorns.” Gregory also takes issue with a National Public Radio story that asked Republicans, who say a tax on these people could hurt job creation.

To me, both Gregory’s comments and Reid’s represent another problem: the tendency of political argument to use data not to try to answer key questions but to attack straw men. Here’s what I wrote on Gregory’s post:

The NPR reporter did find several “millionaire job creators,” and all of them said that the tax would have no impact on whether or not they hire.

Sure, that may be a biased sample, because all those people came from NPR’s probably blue-as-Grover Facebook page.

The question is not whether people who make more than a million in annual income make hiring decisions. It’s whether taxing them will cause them to either eliminate jobs or hire fewer new people.

If they are actually filing taxes on their business income as personal income (and why would they do this? Isn’t the reverse more often true?) does taxing that income represent job creation?

You’re skirting that question almost as much as Reid was with the “unicorn” soundbyte. Sure, that hedge fund manager has a secretary and several associates. But they all get paid out of the hedge funds books, not the $1 million he’s taking home.

Are these taxes going to impact job creation, either way? Based on what you’ve written, it honestly seems unlikely. Although you do make a compelling argument that both sides of the aisle are making decisions based on political posturing than reason.

This just seems like one more case of warring assumptions being used to make political arguments, instead of actual data.

This seems like an answerable question, to me. But will we ever stop shouting enough to get any answers? This aversion to actually answering questions seems to have dominated the debate over health care reform, and I see it in discussions of other science-based issues, such as climate change, as well. Is this the cost of politics, or is there some way we could actually address the issues that we’re debating?

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As we may all agree, Sen. Reid isn't the handiest guy with, you know, speaking, words, and such. A little clumsy in making his points, so that they are easily mocked. Sure, we've all seen evidence of that!

What he SHOULD HAVE SAID is that finding job creators making over $1 million dollars a year who will say that their hiring decisions are based on the personal tax rate range in play in current discussions is as rare as finding a unicorn. Which would be quite true, btw.

I have not heard of anyone who went into business for the purpose of employing people, unless it was a family business, to employ the family members.

A smart businessman would make sure to have the minimum number of employees possible that is consistent with the sales volume he needs for the profit level he wants. The fewer the better.

Which has nothing to do with his marginal personal tax rate.

In fact, the higher the personal tax rate, the greater the incentive to invest or spend in the business is, since you net that much less on any dollar not invested or spent.

Let's say the marginal tax rate is over 90%, and you have income that puts you in that top bracket. Now when you spend a dollar more for employees, it only costs you the dime (or less) you'd otherwise receive as an after-tax net amount (not the whole dollar). Same with investing in plant or equipment. Yes, you lose the dollar out of your pocket, but only 10 cents or less in after-tax net difference.

LWW

12-30-2011, 02:17 PM

Might I suggest a freshman HS economics class for you?

Soflasnapper

01-01-2012, 09:37 PM

Took economics at Princeton, thank you!

If you want to dispute a point, do so. Stop your ridiculous LWW the Insult Dog act.

wolfdancer

01-02-2012, 02:59 AM

I think both his attempted put down, and your answer to that are a classic !!! if they ain't internet classics of someone putting their foot in their own mouth, at least they will become in time...a BD classic.
Editing/rewriting the exchange for more readability:
llw...I studied economics in the 7th grade...so what do you know about the subject?
you...I studied economics at Princeton
I'd have paid to see the look on larry's face after he read that.
All I know about economy is that when someone is speaking about M1, he's not necessarily talking about a rifle.

If you want to dispute a point, do so. Stop your ridiculous LWW the Insult Dog act. </div></div>

If that is true ... I suggest you seek a refund.

cushioncrawler

01-02-2012, 03:24 PM

I aint dunn ekonomix in 7th grade or anywhere -- i hav had zero hours of any sort of ekonomix.
This puts me level with Woofly and Soflasnapper -- they havnt dunn any hours of ekonomix neither.

Western style krappynomix iz nothing but politix (macrokrappynomix) and finance (microkrappynomix).
On the other hand there might be a little bit of proper ekonomix hidden away in there somewhere.

Funny, the only real bit of proper ekonomix that u will find in a krappynomix textbook iz never uzed by krappynomicysts, never mentioned.
And that iz the bit about proportional (komparativ) advantage.
Amazing. Unbeleevable.
mac.

LWW

01-03-2012, 03:43 AM

Mac, I commend you on being the only leftist here that openly embraces fascism.